


All I want is nothing more (to hear you knocking at my door)

by kindoflike



Series: It's very brief [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Coffee Shop, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 11:10:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3486017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindoflike/pseuds/kindoflike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'One week she comes in every single day except Sunday and you spend the whole shift worrying, missing her, actually.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a coffeeshop au that kind of turned into something else.

1\. 

It’s very brief. 

but it happens. 

you aren’t sure of much but you are sure of that. 

\--  
2\. 

It’s January and cold is all it is right now. She comes in like everyone else, all coat and scarf. 

She glances briefly at the menu board overhead and heads to the counter. She orders a coffee and hands some coins over to Raven. Raven, whose never quite taken to customer service, doesn’t say anything, just slides the lid with her order scribbles over to you. You read it and you start making the coffee. She waits. 

The coffee brews, the milk heats up and pull your hand away before it burns. 

You pour, then seal the lid and set it down on the counter. You see her name scrawled on the side of the cup and you look at her when you say 

“Lexa?’ 

She looks up from her phone, nods and takes her coffee. A beat later and she turns and walks out the door. 

 

\--  
3\. 

It's a Friday morning and she comes in again. 

You’re busy preparing a sandwich for the woman from Argentina who comes in every morning at 10.30am and sits by the window writing poetry til closing time and normally its Raven who deals with the food but she’d gone out to get milk so here you are with soggy fingers slicing an even soggier tomato. 

You hear footsteps on the wooden floor and you turn to the counter. Your brain does the mental equivalent of tripping because people come in all the time but you never really expected her to come _back_. 

You hesitate, but only just for a second, before you smile and ask her what she’d like. 

As you make her coffee, trying not to be obvious about watching her, her grey eyes wonder around the room, landing and bouncing between the Argentinian poet and Murphy the dour supermarket worker who comes in on his lunch breaks to complain about life in general or have heated phone arguments with his family in England. 

She turns back to you and eyes meet for a second before yours quickly dart away. 

You struggle a bit with the lid of her coffee cup and she’s only just smirking, maybe, but then you’re done and she hands you a five dollar bill and says ‘keep the change’ and then, just barely, she smiles before she turns and leaves. 

You hear Raven slam the back door and it startles you, reminds you of the tomato chopped only half. 

\--  
4\. 

She comes in every week for two months. 

At first, the conversation kind of speeds and then sags and then flops over before getting back up and running around madly. 

She doesn’t give you much to work with, at first and there are times when you feel like you’re attempts are unwanted, boring her maybe. But then she goes and compliments your shirt or hair and asks you a question about something you’d mentioned days ago and it makes your hands tingle. Makes your stomach just like, flip the fuck out. 

You get over being intimidated enough to tease and prod at her reserved kind of coolness and she spills out a little bit more every time. 

All of a sudden it’s like, fucking banter. 

\--

5.

One week she comes in every single day except the Sunday and you spend the whole shift worrying, missing her, actually. 

\--  
6\. 

She comes in on an incredibly empty Thursday afternoon. 

She kind of barrels in before she flops down in the chair at the table closest to the counter and says, uncharacteristically emotive “Fuck, I just had the worst day at work’ and after some prodding, she recounts what turns out to be truly horrible experience involving her boss at the law firm. Its only after all that that you remember to ask 

“Oh, do you want a coffee?’ 

She hesitates before saying yeah, a coffee would be great and rummages in her bag for some coins but stops when you shake your head 

“No, no, don’t even try. its on the house. Rough day and all that. ’ 

She smiles, that flicker, and nods in thanks. 

She stays until your shift finishes. 

\--  
7\. 

A week later, she comes in 15 minutes before closing time. 

You walk her to the train even though it’s in the complete wrong direction from your flat. She watches two go by, just because you hadn’t finished telling her a story. 

\--  
8\. 

It’s a Tuesday morning and you’re both standing outside the café. She’s on her way to work armed with a steaming cup of coffee and you’re supposed to be cleaning the outdoor tables. Not much cleaning is getting done, however, because you’ve ended up sitting on the table as she tells you, in that dry tone that you find wonderfully hilarious, about something that happened at work. 

Your laughter is cut off by the bang of the café door swinging open and Octavia all but shrieks 

‘Clarke, you useless lesbian would you please come and find the broom because I just dropped a huge sack of ant infested flour and its fucking everywhere’ 

The door slams again and Octavia’s words don’t even really register – she drops something at least once a week - until you look to Lexa to find her grey eyes bright and smirking. 

“You musn’t be so useless… if she’s asking for your help’ 

\--  
9\. 

It’s become a regular Thursday event to walk her to the train station. 

One time, you’re walking beside her through the underpass talking about the latest episode of Orphan Black when you come to the bottom of the stairs to find a father trying to hoist up a small bike in one of his hands while he balances his daughter on his hip. Reflexively, you kind of grab onto one of the wheels to take the weight off it and say

‘Do you need a hand?” 

He looks relieved and smiles widely 

‘If you wouldn’t mind’ 

You lift the bike from him and hang it on your shoulder. He starts to walk up the stairs with his daughter and before you do too, you look back to Lexa. She’s watching you and you grin at her and say

“I know it’s a bit too pink but a free bike is a free bike’ and she rolls her eyes, almost smiling, before following you. 

You set the bike down in front of the toddler who claps her hands together and gets on, her little legs working furiously as she tears off down the platform. The father thanks you, twice and then sets off after her. 

You can feel Lexa’s eyes on you so you turn to look at her and she looks like she’s about to say something but she swallows whatever the words were when the train pulls up. 

“So, Have a good night’ 

“You too, Clarke’ 

There’s a beat and then she leans in and kisses your cheek, pulling back to look at you one more time and her eyes are aflame. You don't get a chance to do or say anything before she turns and boards the train. 

You stand dumbly and watch it pull away. Your skin tingles for hours and hours. 

\--  
10\. 

She mentions it once: ‘my ex-girlfriend’ 

She doesn’t linger on it at all and its lost among so many other words, so you think you probably just misheard. 

Hope can mess with you like that. 

\--

11\. 

It blindsides you completely then when 

She asks you out. 

“Like, on a _date_ , Clarke” 

-  
12\. 

You think it’ll stay with you forever: 

_She_ asks _you_

 

\--  
13\. 

Despite Raven and Octavia’s reminders that ‘you hang out with her like all day everyday anyway, like seriously, how much coffee can one girl need’, you are stomach churning and palms sweating nervous.

You spend nearly an hour deciding what to wear and it probably would have been more, but Octavia, whose also your roomate and her brother Bellamy get completely sick of it and basically haul you out the door. 

You aren’t late but you still don’t arrive first. Lexa is sitting at the bar and you’ve never felt so lucky - to see her in the quiet moment before she sees you. 

\--  
14.

You consider asking someone what the rules are, like what happens next and how long is the appropriate time to wait before calling and what does one official date actually mean. But your heart jerks violently, painfully when she calls and you figure there’s no point playing any sort of game when you probably look as giddy as you feel. 

\--  
15.

The second time, she suggests dinner. 

It feels just that little bit more formal and engineered, in a sense, but then the food arrives and you shove a whole lot in your mouth because you haven’t eaten since breakfast and wow, okay, you hadn’t exactly been prepared for how spicy this curry thing was going to be and you keep chewing and chewing but its just really, really hot and she’s starting to notice that’s your face is contorting and you give up on appearing like elegant or whatever when you finally swallow and grab your glass and start chugging and you should care, probably, about how water is dribbling down your chin and onto your shirt but your mouth is on fire. 

You finish the water and set down your glass but your nose is starting to run. Everything is still burning and you gasp ‘do you think they have milk?’ 

Your tongue hurts the next day but you’d do it all over again just to see her throw her head back and laugh and smirk at you whilst politely asking the waitress if they perhaps have any yoghurt side dishes. 

\--  
16.

You hear the clang of the door of the café whilst you’re cleaning a table and seconds later you see her black boots. She was supposed to meet you after your shift had finished but she’s early and you straighten up and say hey, start to tell her as much but she takes a few steps forward with her eyebrow quirked and then her hand – cold, its still cold – is on your neck and you feel her breathe warm on your lips before she kisses you. You drop the tea towel on the floor and pull her in by the hips. 

The heavily accented shouts of the manager ordering Raven around in the back and the whine of Murphy telling someone to shove it on his phone become the soundtrack to the best moment of your life. 

\--  
17.

She is a puzzle. 

Some pieces, she hands out freely. Others you find yourself. 

Sometimes they come together perfectly. Sometimes you find one that doesn’t seem to belong at all. 

She is a puzzle, all curves and edges. 

 

\--  
18.

It’s your first Friday night off in about two months and whilst there had been a vague plan to go out, the clock flashing 12.36am finds you both tangled on her couch. She’s lying with her head on your chest and your twirling her hair in your fingers. The credits are rolling out on some crappy TV Movie but moving now would feel like destruction. 

She peers up at you and your fingers halt. She’s already asked you with her eyes before she whispers

‘Stay. Spend the night.’ 

It’s a loaded question and it makes you shiver. 

You just nod. Anything else would be impossible. 

\--  
19\. 

Gentle and slow.

She takes your body.

\--  
20\. 

You aren’t a religious person. Spirituality has always eluded you. 

But when you wake up and she’s lying next to you, you kind of get it, finally. 

Some things are divine. 

\--  
21\. 

She calls you and says to come and meet her at work. 

You get there only 17 minutes late but its enough to make you feel bad because these past few weeks she’s has been on a tight schedule and you’re not really on any kind of schedule at all. 

You’re outside the firm and you stop to catch your breath before you press the buzzer. You say, haltingly, that you’re here to see Lexa and the voice on the other end says ‘Oh, you’re _Clarke_.’ like it means something. 

You climb the stairs and a woman who you assume is the Firms receptionist tells you that Lexa will be another 10 minutes because she’s sitting in on an interview and its running longer than expected, you know how it is. You nod and smile and say that’s fine, even though you have absolutely no clue how it is at all. 

You hear the clack clack of her shoes coming down the hallway before you see her and when she rounds the corner, her shoulders are stiff and her eyes are cold and she’s someone else entirely. Then she sees you, smiles barely and rolls her eyes and she’s Lexa again. 

Later, at a bar down the road, you meet ‘ some close friends’. They are all young lawyers too and all seem to exude that self-assured sense of knowing what they want out of life. You’re lost, in comparison, a freelance artist who makes more coffee than art these days but you’ve got some stories from that one year at medical school and they seem to like you, enough. 

On the walk home, she takes your hand. She’s a very private person sometimes but not tonight. 

\--  
22\. 

You don’t make a big deal of things, mostly, but when your mother calls to yell at you for not calling, the words tumble out – how much of a big deal this is. 

\--  
23\. 

She’s met Finn before, obviously, but this is the first time you’re going out together, just you three and you have this impending sense of doom the whole afternoon. 

Dinner goes fine, well even. 

But later that night Lexa kisses ‘you are mine’ 

\--  
24\. 

Sometimes she is entirely too cool. 

Sometimes she tries to fight it with everything she has – how soft she really is. 

 

\--  
25\. 

You meet her family. 

An hour or so later finds you on the landing in front of her apartment.  
She’s in front of you and she fumbles the key for the door. It drops to the floor with a clatter. She bends quickly and picks it up and you expect her to have another go but instead, her eyes flit to yours and you hear her mutter ‘fuck it’ and she’s grabbing onto the front of your jacket and she’s kissing you and kissing you. Her hands move up to cup your cheeks and she tugs on your bottom lip. The surprise wears off and you’re kissing her back, grasping her waist and moving her backwards until she’s flat up against the door. Your lungs start to burn so you place one kiss on the side of her mouth before pulling away, but only slightly. Her eyes open, smiling. Her voice is low and crackly when she says

‘Apparently you are a delight’ 

\--  
26.

You’re sitting across from each other in this really nice café that’s just opened up down the road from her apartment. She’s reading through a new case and you’re finally reading that book your Mother sent you for Christmas last year. 

The waiter, all muscle T-shirt and latest trend haircut, comes to take your order and you can practically hear his breath hitch when Lexa turns to face him. She’s wearing her reading glasses today and her hair is in soft curls and its only fair, really, that he melts. He looks to you and you smile and reel off your order. He leaves and she just gives you a small smile before going back to her papers. 

It’s a wonder, you think, how you are the one out of all the people in all the world. The one who gets to sit across from her. 

\--  
27\. 

One night, you fuck in the toilet stall of a club. 

It’s heady and fast. The bass is loud and so is she. 

\--  
28\. 

You attempt to have sex in the shower. 

It doesn’t really work out. 

You just can’t seem to get enough friction, your back is hurting and the spray ends up being nothing but distracting. 

After a while, she pulls away, kisses you on the cheek before picking up the Shampoo bottle and handing it too you 

‘Well you may as well make yourself useful’ 

Your laughter echoes off the shower walls. 

-  
29\. 

One morning, after a late night, you’re in the kitchen – you’ve been up for hours by now - and you hear her alarm going off madly. A few seconds later you hear a crash. 

You put down your tea and abandon your toast and walk into the bedroom to find her lying flat on her stomach, messily tangled in the sheets and you step on something that turns out to be her phone. Upon inspection you find its cracked but still functioning and so you set the alarm to 30 seconds from now and you settle in beside her. You hear her hum when the mattress dips. 

You try not to snigger as you put the alarm right near her ear - It's a Sunday, a day which she adamantly refers to as 'A day of rest' but she's been invited to sit in on a meeting with an overseas firm today so you figure she’ll thank you later 

The phone blares, startling her so much she basically punches you in the chest. After a moment where you’re shaking silently with laughter, she slides into a sit and stands, grumbling as she does. 

Her clothes are peeled off as she makes her way to the bathroom. She comes back with face scrubbed clean and a toothbrush in her mouth. 

Your laughter fades. She just floors you, sometimes. 

She looks at you and roughly asks ‘what’ and it was probably intended to be menacing but toothpaste sprays out of her mouth and is starting to dribble down her chin. 

You shrug ‘nothing’

She narrows her eyes for just a second before trudging over to the wardrobe. 

It is nothing

but its also everything. 

\--  
30.

Inevitably, you clash into each other. 

You have this hot thing inside of you that needs to be yelled and she goes cold and detaches from the world. It gets messy, sometimes. 

\--  
31.

You go for a run in the park. Its something you started doing when your parents were fighting in high school and it never fails to calm you down. 

This time, when you finish your last lap of the oval, she’s sitting next to your towel on the benches. 

She stands when she sees you and watches as you walk over. You come to a stop in front of her. 

Her eyes don’t tell you anything and you can’t get air fast enough. 

But then she’s pulling you close, slowly but firmly and she doesn’t let go until you fall into her, letting your head sink and you arms wrap around her back. The front of her shirt is damp within seconds and everything smells like sweat. She presses her lips to your hot cheek and you feel your shoulders unwind. 

You grasp her jacket in your fingers and hold on tight. Relief is a sweet, sweet thing. 

\--


	2. Chapter 2

\--  
32\. 

You get ludicrously drunk at party on a Thursday night. 

You'd promised Octavia you would go and you blame her friend with the googly eyes– his name escapes you - who’d given you free drinks just because. You probably should of said no, on account of being a massive lightweight and on account of the fact that you have work tomorrow and on account of a lot of things but they were free drinks and free drinks affect the body differently than regular drinks, at least that's what you’d told yourself after the third. 

You don’t know what time it is, can’t seem to find your phone in any of your pockets but Bellamy had been quite sure that it was time to go home and Octavia had gotten one of her guy friends from Uni, someone big and strong named Lincoln to manhandle you into a taxi despite you’re assurance that you could totally walk in a straight line you just didn’t want to. 

Lincoln closes the door and taps the top of the cab. The driver says ‘So where to?” and it takes you a couple of seconds to focus. Your mouth opens and out tumbles Lexas’ address. It feels like the right answer. 

You over tip and say more than once that that was the best cab ride of your entire life and he lets you out with a chuckle. You’re feeling quite fantastic, really, even more so when you manage to remember the code for the front door and really, what a time to be alive. 

You slip on the second top step in the last lot of stairs and you’re drunk, sure but not so drunk that it doesn’t fucking hurt. You ramble and whine to yourself and you tend to be a bit heavy footed anyway so it shouldn’t be a surprise when you hear the shouts of her next door neighbor telling you to ‘shut the fuck up, Clarke do you know what time it is what the hell you don’t even live here’ 

A few moments later, a door opens. She’s in a big sweater and boxers and her hair is a curly mess. You like it better like this, untouched and wild. 

You smile blearily and say something like Googly eyes did this to me and the whole world spins when you stand and you can’t remember walking but suddenly, you’re lying down on something soft and you sigh because the pillow smells like her shampoo. Her face is swimming above you and you love her grey eyes so, so much. It’s the most pleasant non-dream you’ve ever had and you tell her so. 

But she doesn’t smile, her nostrils flare and she sighs angrily 

‘I have court tomorrow, Clarke’. 

Still, she makes you drink 4 cups of water, brush your teeth and doesn’t let you collapse back on the bed until you’re in your favorite sleep shirt. 

\--  
33\. 

You get confused by all the different positions and rungs on the ladder in between finishing law school, which she’d done in record time, and being a ‘real lawyer’. She reminds you often about how long she’s got to go.

It’s a Wednesday evening and she gets a phone call during dinner and she sighs like ‘I better take this one’ and your go ahead nod is superfluous because she’s already stood and answering. You hear her voice, strong and clear, debating and arguing with someone who is obviously not winning. 

To you, at any rate, it already seems very real. 

\--  
34\. 

You have hundreds upon hundreds of attempted sketches. They are of her. They are all of her. 

And yet, you are not satisfied enough with any of them to let her see. 

It’s her lips that are so difficult. You can never seem to illustrate the way that it is when they are _almost_ smiling that she looks the happiest. 

Also, you just don’t think it is possible for that particular color to exist anywhere else but her eyes. 

\--  
35\. 

One of her work friends throws a party. You don’t want to go, really, just because you don't really know them all that well but she spends hours with your friends, despite not particularly getting along with Octavia, so you figure its only fair. 

It’s crowded by the time you get there and the music, whilst being good, is that tiny bit too loud. You feel it in your bones. 

Lexa squeezes your hand and gives you a quick kiss on the cheek before heading outside to talk with Paige, one of her law school friends who is an outstanding chain smoker. You’re contemplating a drink when her friend Nick, who you do know and like, mostly because he too tries to get Lexa to work a little less, strides over to you and awards you a warm hug before he clasps your shoulder and says 

“Now Clarke, I’ve got a friend of mine here from Vancouver named Andy who has actually been to an Art gallery in the last 5 years so I’ll think you’ll have lots to talk about’ 

\--  
36\. 

Despite Andy’s riveting tale of his time at a gallery that consisted primarily of art from the early colonial period of Australia, the night is mainly made up of a bunch of lawyers heatedly discussing various cases. It all becomes increasingly fraught with terms, which must be Latin or something, and technicalities which allude you. Admittedly, you have listened to Lexa talk about these things for hours but the actual content is pretty much always overshadowed by how she moves her hands and furrows her brow and the way her voice kind of booms when she’s summing up the reason why the guy is guilty. 

Still, despite spending the night feeling terribly inadequate, it feels worth it when later on Lexa lies down next to you in bed, curls herself into your spine and husks in your ear 

“Thank you, Clarke’ 

\--  
37\. 

It’s a Sunday morning.

A strip of light from the not quite closed curtain shines at the back of your eyelids, forcing you awake. 

You stay still for a few moments, as the fragments of your dreams swim and scatter. After a while, you shift to look at Lexa. She's lying flat on her stomach and looks very much asleep. A few breaths come and go, come and go and then she must feel you stirring because her arm comes out from under the pillow and her palm falls softly on your cheek. 

She murmers something unintelligible into the pillow that you pretend is 'Good morning' but is probably much ruder than that. 

You move closer to her and she finally cracks open one eye. 

You’ve been sleeping on a thought for the last few days and with her hair all tangled and her face half squashed into a pillow, it just kind of settles over you as the perfect time to let her know

“I want you to meet my father’ 

Her palm falls from your face and your words hang in the morning silence. 

Slowly, she lifts herself so her head is propped up on her hand and she’s watching you, waiting for you. 

“I know he’d like you a lot.’ 

You feel them then, the hot tears spilling over your lashes. 

She gives you a few moments to shake and shudder before her thumb brushes away your tears and her lips press against your forehead. 

Sometimes you hate how she doesn't say things, sometimes you hate how she lets silence sing. But not right now, not this morning. 

-


	3. Chapter 3

\--  
38\. 

You’re at work when she calls. 

Raven rolls her eyes at you and takes the dishcloth out of your hand, allowing you to slip outside and answer 

“Babe?’

Her voice is full when she says your name and you _know_ , in that moment, before she actually goes on to say the words. 

She’d barely mentioned it other than ‘just some long shot’ but you know her. Know what she can do. 

She starts to tell you about where and what and who and how and you exclaim excitedly back at her, scaring away at least 3 potential customers but she’s starting to ramble, at least as much as Lexa can, and you stop caring about anything else but the way her voice is bursting. 

-  
39.

You’re cleaning up after everyone has gone home – Nick had brought silly string and you don’t even want to know how it got in the bathtub – and Lexa is passed out in bed. You stop scrubbing just for a minute and sit on the lid of the toilet. For the first time since she called, you let your shoulders realize. 

The clock is ticking now and you know what distance does. 

Better than most, you know what it does. 

\--  
40.

You’re sitting on the bus on the way to her parents house and she takes your hand, leans into your shoulder and her lips brush against your neck. 

“This can work’ 

You take her hand and squeeze it, just once. You want to believe her so, so badly. 

You’ve never wanted anything more than to believe her. 

\--  
41.

It’s 10.30 am and you’re in the kitchen eating cereal. 

Lexas' roommate Gus is sitting across from you turning the big pages of the newspaper. 

She is in the bedroom packing her bags and she’s singing to herself, not particularly quietly. You love her voice, love being one of the few who gets to hear her use it that way. She’s singing something you don’t know probably because she only seems to listen to music from before dinosaurs roamed the earth but then the smoky lilting – she was out with Paige last night - stops and she calls out

“Is four pairs of black jeans excessive?” 

You lose your appetite all of a sudden, have to push the plate away. 

\--  
42.

She doesn’t ask you to come with her. You don’t ask her to stay. 

 

\--  
43.

At the airport, she kisses your salt. 

\--  
44\. 

You call her. 

She sounds happy, talks and talks and talks and that lovely strange rhythm in which she finds words is even more noticeable just because you didn’t wake up with it in your ear.  
For a while, you can breathe. 

She cuts the call short, has to meet someone for something. 

Will call you soon. 

\--  
45\. 

You wait up til past 1am because she said she’d Skype you. You check the little icon next to her name every 5 minutes after the hour she said she’d see your face. 

47 minutes pass. 

Even after you turn your computer off, you stay up for another half hour worrying, coming up with rational, plausible excuses why she couldn't make it, trying desperately to convince yourself it wasn’t because she forgot. 

\--  
46.

She’s been away for a month, four weeks, 30 days, whatever. 

You get an email from an art publication which reads like ‘thanks but no thanks’, and its not the first, no way, but you’d really thought you had a chance this time around. 

You read the email again and consider a polite reply but instead you just snap the lip of your laptop closed. You stare at it for a moment before the pinching just next to your spine becomes too much. You stand, wander into the living room and turn on the T.V in hope of distraction.

You flick back and forth between channels listlessly but can’t shake how wrong this all is. Can’t help but remember the last time when all you’d gotten was No. When Lexa had read the email and her eyes had narrowed fiercely and she’d spent about 20 minutes fuming, exclaiming more than once that this was simply _unjust_. She’d taken all the anger and frustration on so you didn’t have to carry any of it and then, that night, she’d let her spoon clatter back in the tub of ice cream and she’d kissed your palms sticky before leveling you with a hard stare that brokered no argument. 

“You are good, Clarke.’ 

Right then, you had felt it true. 

But now you sit alone on the couch, try and swallow how much it aches that the one person you need right now is halfway across the fucking world. 

 

\--  
47.

You don't tell her how you'd cancelled a shift at work so that you could finally manage to Skype her at a reasonable time. She'd admonish you, surely and that's not what you need from her eyes right now. 

You feel nervous and you don't know why and it's not until you've made her almost smile three times that your heart stops pounding. 

You cancelled a four hour shift and she says she's got the rest of the night to talk but something happens to your internet connection after about an hour and her face won’t stop freezing. You turn it on and off, on and off but then the sound keeps cutting out and after another stilted half an hour, you both decide to just hang up.

\--  
48.

Murphy says she’s not worth it

 _Oh, but she is_ chokes up your throat. 

\--  
49.

She calls you at 2.37am

You miss the call because you’d been sleeping. 

You call her back at 7.29am 

She misses the call because she’d been sleeping, probably.

\--  
50.

The weeks pass. 

Like waves, they crash over you. 

Each one feels more and more like drowning. 

\--  
51.

Most days, its her laugh you miss the most. You can hear it on the phone, sure, but you can’t feel it rumbling in her chest, breathed into your mouth, muffled against your neck. 

\--  
52.

It’s a Friday night. 

You don’t want to be alone so you get blisteringly drunk with a whole bunch of people from the Café. The number of people at the table multiplies and there's a whole lot of people who you feel like you know, vaguely, but can’t place their names and you are too buzzed to bother trying. They don’t tell you to slow down and they laugh when you get loud, loud, louder. 

Mona, who got a new job at a restaurant and so hasn't been around in a while, grins widely at you and says

‘Its so great Lexa is living her dream’ 

Later, you’ll tell yourself it’s the alcohol that makes you throw up. 

\--  
53.

She flies in for a weekend to sort out something with her old boss and she spends all of dinner talking about things you’ll never do and people you’ll never meet. 

She’s lit up like you’ve never seen her and later, after sex that hadn’t been bad had just been different, she doesn’t ask why you’re crying. 

\--  
54.

Some nights, you dream she’d never left. 

Some nights, you dream she comes back and whispers words like ‘forever’ 

Some nights, you dream she meets someone else. 

Then, one night. 

you don’t dream of her at all. 

\--  
55.

The days between messages stretch and stretch and stretch and stretch

\--  
56\. 

One day,

it snaps


	4. Chapter 4

57.

It was only a matter of time.

You always knew what she would choose. 

But that doesn’t stop you from breaking. 

\--  
58\. 

You listen to desolate songs and cry your eyes dry. 

\--  
59\. 

Weeks pass before you can draw and even then, you can only use reds and oranges. 

Have to stay away from grey. 

\--  
60.

It’s 4am and you’re staring at the ceiling. 

The anger bubbles up in your throat and you grab your phone off the nightstand.  
You delete all the messages and delete all the pictures. Your thumb hesitates but you delete her number too. 

It’s better this way, better not to be tempted. 

Still, at 5.32 am, when your eyes are still open and the ceiling is still white. You mouth the words, anyway

 _“If you love me, why did you leave me?’_

\--  
61.

You take every possible extra shift at work 

The Café is still haunted 

but it’s better than your bedroom. 

\--  
62.

On a Sunday night, Bellamy comes back from a 3 day work trip. He lets himself in with the spare key and after dumping his bag in the hallway, wanders into the living room. There, he finds you lying on the couch in your pajamas watching some british real estate show, a half eaten bag of chips crumpled beside you.

He gives you the saddest smile and his voice is gentle when he says

“Evening, Griffin’ 

You let it all wash over you for a second, almost have to close your eyes 

but his cheeks crease quickly and he throws a thumb towards his bag and grins, dimply and wide

‘I’ve got a fuckton of duty free booze. What say we drink every time the husband attempts to imply that he hates everything about the house?’ 

The laughter is unexpected and your chest welcomes it with open arms. 

\--  
63.

Raven comes over on a Friday night. 

She lets herself in with the spare key and goes straight to the kitchen, squeezing your shoulder when she passes. She comes back with a mug of Tea, made just the way you like it and she sits down next to you on the couch, picking up the remote and turning on the TV without saying a word. 

You watch some new show her friend recommended and she looks relieved when you get into it enough to point out why the male protagonist is a bumbling idiot. 

The Pizza you ordered hours ago finally arrives and you eat it sitting on the floor with your backs leaning against the couch. After you’re done, she takes off her brace, lays her head in your lap and talks to you about things that don’t hurt. 

\--  
64.

Lexas’ mother calls you one afternoon to ask for the name of a book

It sounds an awful lot like Goodbye

\--  
65.

It’s been exactly a month and 18 days when Gus calls you. 

He says there’s a bunch of stuff here that doesn’t belong to Lexa, is probably yours and wonders if you might be able to swing by after 5 to pick it up. 

When you hesitate, he sighs and says 

“I don’t think she’s coming back, Clarke’ 

it hits you in the stomach, the chest, the backs of your knees 

\--  
66.

It’s a rainy Wednesday afternoon and you’re folding napkins at the table by the window. 

Argentinian poet takes a sip of her coffee and lets out a satisfied sigh, turns to you and says she’s just finished the 8th draft of her anthology. She tells you in almost perfect English, how she nearly lost her whole publishing deal on account of this one poem that the editors hated, but that meant the world to her. 

You manage a smile and say something reflexively innocuous before making your way into the delivery alley out the back. Raindrops catch on your eyelashes and your fingers turn blue as you sit hunched over on a crate; chest heaving and throat stinging. 

_So that’s what it is to fight for love, then._

\--  
67.

You see Nick on the train. 

His eyes meet yours, widen for a moment in recognition and then he gives you a smile. 

but nothing more than that. 

\--  
68.

Your mother comes to visit for a few weeks.

She comes out of the arrivals gates and your stomach twinges when you remember who you won’t be seeing walking out from behind that white wall. A few moments later your mother, who you haven’t seen in 8 months, is pulling you into a hug so tight and warm that you forget all the things that won’t be. 

\--  
69.

Raven tries to set you up with someone, a new friend of hers from College who is apparently ‘just as annoying as you are’ 

You don’t go through with it but there is a moment when you actually consider it. 

Some would call that moving on. 

\--  
70.

You get an acceptance letter from an Art magazine and Octavia, her googly eyed friend and some guy he brings called Monty, shout down your halfhearted protesting that its only an internship and you’ll still need to work at the Café to pay the rent. They buy you drink after drink and take you dancing and for a few hours, the world is lovely and bright. 

\--  
71.

You overhear some teenage girls on the bus talking about school and one of them says, in a pretty perfect impression 

“What, like it’s hard?’ 

You have to bite your lip as you remember that time you’d made a Legally Blonde reference and Lexa had stared at you blankly, thus setting in motion an entire afternoon spent lying on the couch with your arms wrapped around her, mostly in an effort to keep her from running 

‘Lexa, you call yourself a lawyer –“ 

“I don’t call myself a lawyer, not yet –‘ 

“ but you haven’t seen this film? It’s just wrong, babe.’ 

She’d begrudgingly sat through the entire film with minimal scoffs and comments, even admitting that it had ‘a certain charm’. Though, once it had finished, she’d turned to you and proceeded to explain to you the actual process of getting into law school and how it was, in fact, rather difficult. 

The memory makes you laugh more than cry, this time. 

\--  
72.

Suddenly,  
it’s been a year and half. 

\--  
73.

You’re cleaning up the Café when you hear the clang of the door. You yell ‘Sorry, we’re closing’ but don’t hear the door reopen. You clamber up from behind the counter where you’d been unplugging the coffee machine and she’s standing in front of you. 

She looks good, nothings changed. 

except everything. 

-  
74\. 

It’s very brief 

but it happens. 

you aren’t sure of much but you’re sure of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by canon and Kodalines 'All I Want'


End file.
